Amy Dickinson in Block Island. Although she writes for the Chicago Tribune, her office is inside her home in upstate New York.

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When Amy Dickinson stepped into Ann Landers' shoes at the Chicago Tribune, she had no prior experience as an advice columnist. Nearly 10 years later, her column, "Ask Amy," appears in more than 150 newspapers and is read by an estimated 22 million people each day.

"In some ways, I'm lucky because this national success happened to me pretty late, so I was ready for it," says Dickinson, who will speak in Bronxville this week about her memoir, "The Mighty Queens of Freeville." "I had already raised a kid by myself, I had already figured out how to make a living, and I was not afraid at all of the ...